


between the lines

by lifetimeoflaughter



Series: counterparts. (alternatively, through the looking glass) [6]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Fluff, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28487670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifetimeoflaughter/pseuds/lifetimeoflaughter
Summary: a collection of shorter stories within my counterparts crossover-verse. work in progress!
Series: counterparts. (alternatively, through the looking glass) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1962808
Comments: 13
Kudos: 27





	between the lines

**Author's Note:**

> hello! so, because i have a lot of ideas for this universe but not enough content or time to turn them all into longer fics, I've decided to start this multi-chapter one-shot fic. mostly ideas that I come up with on the fly, but I might go back and take some of those requests from across the river in jersey. if you have any ideas or anything you'd like to see, leave me a comment!

“That was pretty fun,” says Duke, taking off his helmet as they enter the Batcave. “Never had a meta to do patrols with, especially not in the daytime. Glad you could make it, dude.”

Kamala grins. “Glad to be here. The amount of crime is ridiculous though, right? That’s not just me. Seriously. I know Gotham’s nicknamed the “Capital of Crime” or whatever, but this was just _so much_.” 

“And it’s only Friday _afternoon_ ,” he replies, grinning at her shock from where he’s taking off his armor. “You haven’t seen prime-crime-time until it’s what, eleven? No joke.”

She hisses in distaste. “Yikes. Maybe it’s a good thing Ammi said I’m supposed to be back by eight. Hand me that water bottle?”

Duke tosses it to her. “Thanks,” she says, taking a long drink. Setting it down, she turns to him. “Where do I get changed again? Sorry, this place is just kind of...”

“Stupidly impossible to navigate? Don’t worry, I still get lost. It’s over there.” He points over her shoulder and she follows the movement. 

“I was _going_ to say huge and dark, but sure. What you said,” she says, amusement coloring her tone as she walks away. 

“You sure you can’t stay? We could play _World of Battlecraft_ , like, all night,” he suggests as power-walks to catch up to her hurried stride. 

Kamala snorts. “I _wish._ Ammi would have a fit if I stayed over. Besides, Iron Man said he’d walk me through my physics homework when I got home, so I better not be late or some world-ending-catastrophe-or-another will end up in the way of me and that A.” 

Duke shakes his head in disbelief as he pushes open a cubicle door. “You have a super-hero,” he says incredulously, “a member of the _Avengers_ and the richest non-royal in the _world,_ tutoring you in high-school physics. What even.”

“ _You_ were adopted by the second-richest dude in the world who _also_ happens to be a vigilante running around in a bat-fursuit, and-” sounds of Kamala struggling and cursing, accompanied by the rustle of fabric coming from the cubicle next to him make Duke pause putting on his shirt as he tips his head and listens. Then it goes quiet. 

“Kamala?” he ventures. 

“-And, he works with _Wonder Woman_ on the regular! No pointing fingers when it comes to weirdness, dude.” She sounds incredibly affronted through the cubicle wall, and Duke has to bite back a chuckle. 

“Fair enough, dude. But Kamala,” he says, stepping out of the cubicle. 

“Yeah?” She unlocks her door and steps out, folding her uniform.

Duke grins. “Did you get stuck in your suit again?” he asks, and bursts out laughing. In his defense, his eyes are closed, so he doesn’t block her punch to his shoulder. “Ow!” 

* * *

“Seriously though. You can _shapeshift_. Why don’t you just-”

“It’s not _shapeshifting,_ it’s molecular time-travel! I’m not Plastic Man!”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you can just _shrink_ out of the fabric instead of fighting it, Kamala.”

“Are you-are you _mansplaining_ changing clothes to me!? And here I thought you were a _feminist_ , Duke. What would Steph say, hm-”

Their bickering cuts off as the sound of a baby crying floats down the stairs leading to the Manor proper. Duke and Kamala glance at each other once confusedly, before racing up the remainder of the steps. 

The wails get louder and louder as the two burst open doors of various rooms on their way out of the ground-floor study, searching for the source of the cries. 

“You guys have a baby?” yells Kamala, pushing open another door. “Clear!”

The child’s crying grows in intensity, the sound echoing in the giant corridor.

“We don’t,” Duke yells over his shoulder. “Clear! Man, this is the worst time to be new to this place.”

Kamala snaps her fingers. “One sec.” 

She stretches her neck to the end of the corridor, and turns the corner and - “There! It’s coming from the big double-doors at the end.” Her body runs to catch up with her neck, and Duke follows suit. They slide to a halt in front of an imposing pair of doors, the cries almost-deafening now. 

“On the count of three,” says Duke. “One, two, _three-”_

They push the doors open, and there in front of them in the middle of one of the plushest living rooms Kamala’s ever seen, stands Dick Grayson bouncing a red-faced screaming child and trying to hush him, the exhaustion clear on his face. 

“Dude,” says Kamala, eyes still fixed on Dick, holding the heavy door open still, “why didn’t you tell me you were an uncle?”

“I’m not,” says Duke, mystified. “That’s...that’s not Dick’s kid, I don’t think.”

Kamala snaps her head to look at him in shock. “Are you saying he _stole_ a kid?”

“I can hear you,” says Dick tiredly, and both of them look up to meet his eyes. “No, Kamala, I didn’t steal someone’s kid.”

“So...you’re baby-sitting? Did one of the Titans have a kid?” Duke asks. 

“No - he is family, but-” Dick sighs as the baby restarts his ear-splitting shrieks once more. 

“It’s Damian. Damian got baby-fied,” chirps Stephanie, bouncing up off a sofa from behind Dick. Duke and Kamala look at each other in confusion for a second, then back at Dick for confirmation, who nods tiredly. 

“ ‘Sup, Steph,” says Duke, stepping into the room and doing a little half-salute-wave thing, sticking his hands in his pockets as Kamala surges past to go look at baby Damian. 

“Hey, Steph! Oh my god, he’s so _tiny_!” she squeals.

Stephanie laughs. “Hey yourself, Ms. Marvelous. He’s a cute little thing, isn’t he? Got hell-raising lungs on him, though. Probably a product of his _superior genetics_ ,” she says, putting her nose in the air, an affectation in her voice. Kamala giggles, and both Duke and Dick crack a smile. Damian seems to take offense at this, and screams louder, prompting Dick to try again to hush him. He adjusts his position on his shoulder, walks around in a circle and bounces him gently, murmuring comforting things under his breath all the while. To no avail.

“It’s been like this all afternoon,” explains Stephanie, rolling her eyes and flopping back down onto the sofa. “He’s not hungry, doesn’t need to be changed. We don’t know what to do anymore.”

Kamala consider this, watches Dick walk around again, rubbing circles on Damian’s tiny back while Damian rages, kicking and screaming.

“Can I take him?” Kamala holds her arms out, in case the question wasn’t clear over the din. Dick looks at Steph, who shrugs defeatedly from the sofa. So he hands the kid over to Kamala, who curls her arms protectively around him, tucking a hand under one tiny arm and repositioning him carefully so Damian’s essentially seated in her arms.

He’s a lot like Malik in shape and size, but Malik’s a relatively chill baby compared to Damian’s incessant screaming. The soft green of his overalls brings out the bright-almost unnatural, really,-green in Dami’s eyes, which happen to be scrunched up and full of tears at the moment. 

“ _Ji, meri jaan. Kya hua hai? Itna rona dhona? Itna shor?_ ” She starts walking slowly, patting his back and bouncing him slowly. “ _Itne pyare se bache ko kis ne tang kya hoga? Jo bhi ho, mein uska pheecha nahi chhorongi, sahi? Bas rona band karlo, meri jaan._ ”

Miraculously, Damian actually starts quieting down. It takes him a minute or two, but he works his way down from shrieks to hiccups to whimpers, and in the end Kamala’s holding a very sleepy little boy with soft hair snuffling into her neck. When she turns around to go sit down, she sees all three of them sitting on the tastefully opulent three-seater sofa with equally dumbfounded expressions on each of their faces.

“What?” she asks.

“How did you _do_ that?!” bursts out Stephanie. 

“Seriously, Kamala,” asks Dick, hands steepled over his face in defeat, “ _how_. I’ve been walking in circles for hours, and all it took you was three minutes.”

“She was also speaking to him in...that was Urdu, right?” points out Duke helpfully. Kamala nods. 

“I tried that!” cries Dick, holding his hands out in frustration. “I tried Arabic, and Urdu, _and_ Farsi, and Mandarin and Japanese and even what I remember of Romani. Believe me when I say that he just cried harder every time I switched languages.”

Stephanie nods fervently next to him. “It’s true,” she says. 

Duke whistles lowly. “Yikes. 

Kamala shifts Damian in her arms. “As weird as all this is, I need to be going soon. My mom’s gonna start to worry.”

“You’re not going anywhere, babe,” says Steph. “I’ll duct-tape you to the wall if I have to, but if you’re the only thing standing between me and an eternal headache. Spoiler alert, pal, but I know the lockdown codes required to keep-mmh!”

“What Stephanie was trying to say was,” completes Dick, having strategically placed his hand on Steph’s mouth, “is that can’t you stick around a bit longer? Maybe just put him to bed, and then you can go? We have an emergency crib set up, and Bruce’ll be back soon, so we can figure this mess out.”

Kamala considers this. “Alright. You’ve got yourselves a deal. One condition though - could one of you drop me home? I was going to walk home, but you guys have those super-bikes-”

“Bat-bikes,” corrects Duke.

“-Bat-bikes, and I’m super-tired,” she finishes. 

“I’ll give you a ride home, no sweat! Bruce just upgraded all of ours, so they’re like, even faster now,” says Steph with a grin. On an unrelated note, Dick is nursing the hand that was previously on Steph’s mouth, which is now marred by a red outline that looks suspiciously like a bite mark. 

“That works,” says Kamala. “That...works. Also, a crib set up for emergencies? Does this kind of thing happen a lot?”

“Not particularly,” says Dick cheerily. “But it happened to Jason once, and so Bruce freaked out and set up a permanent nursery, just to be a grade-A paranoid dingdong. But I guess he was right on this one, so, can’t blame him.”

“Huh. Interesting,” says Kamala. “You’ll have to tell me that story some time.” 

* * *

Damian’s already half-asleep by the time they make their way upstairs to set him down for the night, but Kamala keeps rocking him gently so that he doesn’t start screaming again.

“How did this happen, anyway?” asks Duke, in step with Stephanie. They’re both trailing behind Dick and Kamala, who are picking their way up the carpeted stairs carefully as to not startle Damian.

Dick looks over his shoulder. “Some idiot low-life got ahold of a wand and attacked Gotham Prep to hold the kids for ransom. Spoiler and I got there before anyone actually got hurt, but Dami got hit with the de-aging spell. Bruce is off on a mission with the League, but I sent him a message telling him to bring Zatanna back with him.”

“So...a normal day in Gotham, essentially,” says Duke. 

“Under-normal, actually,” adds Stephanie. “No Arkham escapees yet. And you know how they love their little Friday break-out sessions.”

“Lucky us,” says Duke. “But I bet tomorrow is gonna be extra-difficult, just out of spite.”

“Agreed,” hums Dick. “Oh- Kamala, kiddo, in here.” He swings open a door to a darkened nursery, the light from the hall falling on a rocking chair next to a slightly dusty crib and some assorted soft toys littered around the room.

Kamala reaches to place Damian down into the crib, but the moment she moves him away from her shoulder, his little face screws up in anger and starts turning red. 

And then the screaming starts anew. 

“Make it stop!” yells Steph, plugging her ears.

“I’m trying!” Kamala yells back. She moves to cradle Damian more securely in her arms and rocks him back and forth, but it has no effect. “Come on, _meri jaan,_ please _rona band karlo_?”

Her pleading has no effect on his wails, which only seem to grow in volume. “Try a nursery rhyme, or something,” yells Dick, whose hands are also covering his ears now.

A nursery rhyme. Right. Okay. She’s got this. “Uh. Um. Uh- _lakari ki kaathi, kaathi pe ghora, ghoray ki dum pe jo maara hathora-”_

Blessed silence falls on the room once more as Kamala churns out more lines about horses and vegetable markets and wayward barbers on muscle memory, rocking Damian in her arms gently until she’s sure he’s asleep.

In the background, she can hear them whispering. “Do you think it’s because she resembles Talia a little bit? Maybe’s he’s more comfortable because she looks like his mom, even if his mom is evil,” says Stephanie. 

“Damian said that he hadn’t met Talia until he was eight,” Dick whispers back. “And there isn’t much of a resemblance, apart from the hair color and skin color. And maybe nose, a little bit.”

“Okay, but who raised Damian in the meantime? Kid’s like a little prince, he _obviously_ didn’t raise himself,” Duke counters. 

“Probably like, a bunch of a ninja-nannies,” Stephanie muses.

Dick hums. “Local hires, mostly. He was raised in North Pakistan, so it’s possible she looks and sounds like one of his earlier nannies, ergo he trusts her instinctively.”

A pause. Then: “I need a photo of this,” Stephanie says, and there’s the sound of a Starkphone camera click. “Awww,” she coos, “this is so _sweet_!”

* * *

Eventually, she manages to put Damian down on the cot without waking him, and gently tucks him in so he’s warm. Dick finishes setting up the baby monitor, and they turn to leave. 

“I’ll go get my bike ready,” says Steph, and dashes off ahead of Kamala. The rest of them tiptoe out of the room, careful to not make a single sound lest they wake up the baby-bat once more.

Duke steps out last and closes the door gently, leaving it open just enough to have a thread of light spill into the darkened nursery from the hall. 

“You know,” Kamala whispers, “I really did think he was your kid, first. You guys just look really similar, what with the matching hair and skin tones.”

Dick presses his lips together and blinks hard for a second, a weirdly wistful look overtaking his exhausted features. “Yeah,” he says, “Yeah. I can see why you’d think that.”

The trio start down the hall, but then there’s a _POOF_ and a loud “OW,” from the nursery and Dick races back, followed by Duke and Kamala. He slams the door open and hits the lights, and there’s Damian in full Gotham Prep uniform, rubbing his head with a disgruntled look on his face.

“Grayson,” he says in that affected tone of his, “have you lost your mind? Why am I in a child’s cri-”

The rest of his sentence is cut off as Dick wraps him in a bone-crushing hug, and the kid squawks offendedly. “Unhand me at once- Grayson!”

 _“Marvel!_ Help me this instant!”

“Sorry, kid. I gots’ta go. My ride’s waiting for me!” she yells over her shoulder, taking off at a run down the hall.

“ _World of Battlecraft_ after Iron Man homework-help, yeah?” he calls after her.

“Absolutely!” she grins. “Tell Tim he’s not allowed to join us, not after last time! See ya then!”

He laughs. "See ya, Ms. Marvel."

**Author's Note:**

> Ji, meri jaan. Kya hua hai? Itna rona dhona? Itna shor? - Yes, my love. What's wrong? So much crying? So much noise?  
> Itne pyare se bache ko kis ne tang kya hoga? Jo bhi ho, mein uska pheecha nahi chhorongi, sahi? Bas rona band karlo, meri jaan. - Who could have bothered such a sweet little child? Whoever it is, I won't rest till I find them, just stop crying, my love.
> 
> anywho, that's my first mini-fic! hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it! <3 leave me a comment if there's an idea you'd like to see (can't promise I'll get to it, but I'll try!) 
> 
> hope everyone had a safe and happy new year's, and here's to 2021 being slightly less of a shitshow than it's predecessor.
> 
> and hey? thanks. <3


End file.
